“Never call an accountant a credit to his profession; a good accountant is a debit to his profession.”
- Sir Charles Lyell

"Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies."   
- Thomas Jefferson

"Never spend your money before you have it."
- Thomas Jefferson

"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."
- Albert Einstein

"Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages."
- Henry Louis Mencken

"The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin."
- Mark Twain

"Of course the truth is that the congresspersons are too busy raising campaign money to read the laws they pass.  The laws are written by staff tax nerds who can put pretty much any wording they want in there.  I bet that if you actually read the entire vastness of the U.S. Tax Code, you'd find at least one sex scene ('"Yes, yes, YES!" moaned Vanessa as Lance, his taut body moist with moisture, again and again depreciated her adjusted gross rate of annualized fiscal debenture')."
- Dave Barry

"If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting."
- Benjamin Franklin

"Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors... and miss."
- Robert A. Heinlein

"Most [tax revisions] didn't improve the system, they made it more like Washington itself: complicated, unfair, cluttered with gobbledygook and loopholes designed for those with the power and influence to hire high-priced legal and tax advisers."
- Ronald Reagan

"The taxpayer -- that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination." 
- Ronald Reagan

"Friendship is like money, easier made than kept."
- Samuel Butler

"You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity."
- Thomas Wolfe

"It's income tax time again, Americans:  time to gather up those receipts, get out those tax forms, sharpen up that pencil, and stab yourself in the aorta."
- Dave Barry

"When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income."
- Plato

"The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has."
- Will Rogers

"There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody."
- Adlai Stevenson

"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."
- Benjamin Franklin

"Death and taxes may be inevitable, but they shouldn't be related."
- J.C. Watts, Jr.

"Endless money forms the sinews of war."
- Cicero

"Philosophy teaches a man that he can't take it with him; taxes teach him he can't leave it behind either."
- Mignon McLaughlin

"I'm proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is -- I could be just as proud for half the money."
- Arthur Godfrey

"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
- Ronald Reagan

"Creditors have better memories than debtors."
- Benjamin Franklin

"Behold, the fool saith, Put not all thine eggs in the one basket, -- which is but a manner of saying, Scatter your money and your attention, but the wise man saith, Put all your eggs in the one basket and -- watch that basket."
- Mark Twain

" Like mothers, taxes are often misunderstood, but seldom forgotten."
- Lord Bramwell

"It is a good thing that we do not get as much government as we pay for."
- Will Rogers

"Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today."
- Herman Wouk

"If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him."
- Sir Francis Bacon

“I don't like the income tax. Every time we talk about these taxes we get around to the idea of 'from each according to his capacity and to each according to his needs'. That's socialism. It's written into the Communist Manifesto. Maybe we ought to see that every person who gets a tax return receives a copy of the Communist Manifesto with it so he can see what's happening to him.”
- T. Coleman Andrews, Commissioner of Internal Revenue

"This [preparing my tax return] is too difficult for a mathematician. It takes a philosopher."
- Albert Einstein

"People who complain about taxes can be divided into two classes: men and women."
- Unknown

"A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing something right."
- Unknown

"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."
- Winston Churchill

"A simple fact that is hard to learn is that the time to save money is when you have some."
- Joe Moore

"If you want to know what God thinks of money, look at the people He gives it to."
- Joe Moore

"He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money."
- B. Franklin

"The trick is to stop thinking of it as YOUR money."
- IRS Auditor

"The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets."
- Will Rogers

"It would be a hard government that should tax its people one-tenth part of their income."
- Benjamin Franklin

"Taxation with representation ain't so hot either."
- Gerald Barzan

"Capital punishment:  The income tax."
- Jeff Hayes

"If the Lord loveth a cheerful giver, how he must hate the taxpayer!"
- John Andrew Holmes

"The wages of sin are death, but after they take the taxes out, it's more like a tired feeling, really."
- Paula Poundstone

"Question:  'I understand that Congress is considering a so-called "flat" tax system.  How would this work?'  Answer:  'If Congress were to pass a "flat" tax, you'd simply pay a fixed percentage of your income, and you wouldn't have to fill out any complicated forms, and there would be no loopholes for politically connected groups, and normal people would actually understand the tax laws, and giant talking broccoli stalks would come around and mow your lawn for free, because Congress is NOT going to pass a flat tax, you pathetic fool."
- Dave Barry

"It's about ten times the size of the Bible - and unlike the Bible, contains no good news."
- Don Nickles, about the Internal Revenue Code

"There is an ancient belief that the gods love the obscure and hate the obvious.  Without benefit of divinity, modern men of similar persuasion draft provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.  Section 341 is their triumph."
- Martin D. Ginsburg

"I guess I think of lotteries as a tax on the mathematically challenged."
- Roger Jones

"They can't collect legal taxes from illegal money."
- Al Capone

"There is only one way to kill capitalism -- by taxes, taxes, and more taxes."
- Karl Marx